<ul><li>Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.</li><li>You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences.</li><li>Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.</li></ul>

Steal Like An Artist

“Every artist gets asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” The honest artist answers, “I steal them.”

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

<ul><li>We learn by copying.</li><li>We’re talking about practice here, not plagiarism—plagiarism is trying to pass someone else’s work off as your own.</li><li>First, figure out who to copy.</li><li>Second, figure out what to copy.</li></ul>

Copycat 🐱

“if you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.”

<ul><li>Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style.</li><li>Imitation is about copying. Emulation is when imitation goes one step further, breaking through into your own thing.</li><li>All you need is a little space and a little time—a place to work, and some time to do it; a little self-imposed solitude and temporary captivity.</li></ul>

Imitation Vs Emulation

“Find the most talented person in the room, and if it’s not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. Try to be helpful. (Or) If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.”

“Do good work and share it with people.”Step one, “do good work,” is incredibly hard. There are no shortcuts. Make stuff every day. Know you’re going to suck for a while. Fail. Get better.Step two, “share it with people,” was really hard up until about ten years ago or so. Now, it’s very simple: “Put your stuff on Internet”.

Not So Secret Formula

Step 1: Wonder at something.Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you. You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about.If everybody’s wondering about apples, go wonder about oranges. The more open you are about sharing your passions, the closer people will feel to your work.Artists aren’t magicians. There’s no penalty for revealing your secrets.

Reveal Your Secrets

<ul><li>Remember “garbage in, garbage out”? You’re only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with.</li><li>In the digital space, that means following the best people online—the people who are way smarter and better than you, the people who are doing the really interesting work.(Deepstash)</li></ul>

Garbage In, Garbage Out

You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else—that’s how you’ll get ahead. Google everything. Google your dreams, Google your problems. You’ll either find the answer or you’ll come up with a better question.

Curious

<ul><li>Life is a lonely business, often filled with discouragement and rejection. Validation is for parking, but it’s still a tremendous boost when people say nice things about our work.</li><li>It takes a lot of energy to be creative. You don’t have that energy if you waste it on other stuff.</li><li>Learn from them, steal from them.</li></ul>

Creative

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”

<ul><li>Figure out what time you can carve out, what time you can steal, and stick to your routine. Do the work every day, no matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don’t stop.</li><li>Parkinson’s Law: “Work gets done in the time available.”</li><li>Get a calendar. Fill the boxes. Don’t break the chain.</li></ul>

Make Stealing A Habit

<ul><li>Limitations mean freedom.</li><li>In this age of information abundance and overload, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what’s really important to them.</li><li>In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out. Choose wisely.</li></ul>

Limitations == Freedom

“Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want—that just kills creativity.”

“Fake it ’til you make it. Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.”

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”—T. S. Eliot’s dictum, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Steve Jobs

You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side. When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech around the ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an Artist, the book. The result is inspiring, hip, original, practical, and entertaining. And filled with new truths about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you. Stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring—the creative you will need to make room to be wild and daring in your imagination.

Steal Like an Artist

Anyone can become a developer – even against all odds.But what makes someone an outstanding developer? To us, it's not your technical knowledge (your technical skills will need constant refreshing, anyway).Rather, what can set you up for long-term success as a developer are the characteristics that can help you enjoy your work, as well as excel into higher positions over time. If you're considering or actively pursuing a career in development, skim this piece and see if any of the six characteristics we highlight resonate with you:

6 characteristics that can make you an outstanding developer

It's fascinating to learn how things work. But there's a difference between learning the theory of how things work, and putting those concepts into practice.If you get satisfaction from building something and seeing it in motion, imagine how good it feels to know the software you worked on is running on peoples' devices around the world. While it does involve sitting at a computer, coding is a hands-on building process, wherein each program has its own design and purpose.Your creations as a developer affect how people interact with technology on a daily basis.

1. You're a builder

In case you imagined programming is great for those who'd rather keep their head down at a computer than interact with others – this is an outdated myth. In fact, software development is a team sport. This is undeniably true if you're working on a coding project with other developers, whether within a company or an open-source community.There are plenty of opportunities to collaborate in a developer role. If you love teamwork, your instinct for collaboration and communication will help make these activities more intuitive, impactful, and enjoyable.

2. You're a team player

If you're a creative problem-solver, you have a knack for crafting intuitive or overlooked solutions to pressing problems. In the software industry, this means you can bring valuable perspective to your team, as well as branch off to spearhead your own innovative solutions.Your vision for creative solutions can help you or your team implement practical approaches to problems big and small.

3. You're a creative problem-solver

In a broad sense, being empathetic means you can put yourself in another person's shoes. This ability to switch perspective is incredibly useful in the development world.Your understanding of others will help you make decisions that better support the needs of your colleagues, as well as the needs of your software's user.Overall, empathy will help you anticipate the needs of your colleagues, which in turn, will enable you to support the overall productivity of your team. And lastly, empathy is an important leadership skill that will get you further in your career.

4. You're empathetic

Wherever you are on your coding journey, you're likely to encounter challenges. Software may fail, or you may fail. The challenges you face will be unique to your particular journey. If you can stay determined and keep your goals in sight, despite failure, it'll help you stay resilient throughout your career.As with any competitive field, your determination will help you keep momentum, as well as serve as an example for others. To date, we at Educative have spoken with many successful developers who had a pivotal failing point on their coding journey. Their determination

5. You're determined (and maybe a bit competitive)

If you love learning, you'll never exhaust your learning opportunities in a coding career.The tech industry changes fast, and there will always be new technologies to add to your toolkit. Outstanding developers are always ready to stretch their technical skillset to keep up with the industry and compete in the job market. Development is a pursuit of lifelong learning. If you have a growth mindset and are a dedicated learner, it'll only serve you well in the future.The learning really never stops in development, so if you're a student at heart, you'll never feel stagnant in a coding career.

6. You love learning new things

While it's important to master your technical skills, who you are at your core will play a role in your long-term success as a developer.If any of the characteristics in this piece resonated with you, that's great! They'll surely help you on your coding journey. In the end, the only thing that will make you an outstanding developer is you, and how you choose to shape your unique coding journey. You don't need any prior knowledge, or anything installed on your desktop to get started. We'll just start from the ground up, and you can start writing code as soon as you're ready.

Wrapping Up 

Characteristics that set you up for long-term success as a developer are the characteristics that can help you enjoy your work, as well as excel into higher positions over time.

Freelancing

Outstanding Developer skills 

Deep Work - Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value and improve your skill.Shallow Work - Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world.

Deep Work Vs Shallow Work

<ol><li>Single-tasking: Research has proven over and over again that multitasking makes people less productive. Without a doubt, focusing on one task at a time maximizes productive output.</li><li>Without distractions: You get more work done when you’re not constantly interrupted by distractions.</li><li>Intense focus: If you can put all of your energy on the task at hand without distraction, you’ll get a lot more work done in less time. The more focused you are, the more productive.</li></ol>

Why Is Deep Work Valuable?

“Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.”

Deep work is a skill that needs to be practiced. You might only have the concentration and energy to do it for an hour or two a day. But slowly, slowly, as you keep honing in on the skill, you’ll be able to work deeply and produce massive amounts of work and reap all the benefits of deep work.

Deep Work Is A Skill

Rule 1: Work DeeplyRule 2: Embrace BoredomRule 3: Quit Social MediaRule 4: Drain the Shallows

 The Four Rules of Deep Work

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Monastic: isolate yourself for long periods of time without distractions; no shallow work allowed.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Bimodal: reserve a few consecutive days when you will be working like a monastic (you need at least one day a week).</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Rhythmic: take 3-4 hours every day to perform deep work on your project.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Journalistic: alternate your day between deep and shallow work as it fits your blocks of time(not recommended to try out first).</li></ul>

Use One Of These Four Deep Work Strategies

<ul><li>It’s a lot easier to say no to distractions when you have a really big Yes that you’re pursuing.</li><li>This begs the question, what’s your wildly important goal? What’s the subject that arouses a terrifying longing in your heart? Figure it out, then banish distractions from your life and use deep work to make it happen as quickly as possible.</li></ul>

Say “Yes” to the Wildly Important

"To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction."

<ul><li>You need to constantly fight distractions, push yourself and your concentration to the limits, spend less time on social media, spend less time on the Internet, plan your days (even your leisure time!) in advance, and so on.</li><li>The deep life isn’t for everybody. Much easier to give in to the comforts of artificial busyness. Much easier to waste away time on social media. Much easier to occupy yourself with shallow tasks. Much easier to give in to temptations whenever they arise.(Shallow Work)</li></ul>

The Deep Life

<ol><li>Choose a Deep Work philosophy</li><li>Schedule deep work blocks</li><li>Decide where and how you’ll perform Deep Work</li><li>Execute like a business</li><li>Implement a shutdown ritual</li></ol>

To Work Deeply,

<ul><li>The New Law of Productivity: High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)</li><li>The Principle of Least Resistance: Our tendency toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment.</li><li>Schedule in advance when you’ll use the Internet, and then avoid it altogether outside these times. Do it both at home and work to further improve your concentration training.</li><li>Practice productive meditation : This a period in which you’re occupied physically but not mentally—walking, jogging, driving, showering—and focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem.</li></ul>

Law Of Productivity 

<ul><li>Social Media fragment our time and reduce our ability to concentrate, making it difficult to improve your ability to work deeply.</li></ul>Do a test run: without deactivating, stay off consciously from your social media of choice for 30 days. After 30 days, evaluate:<ol><li>Was it impossible for you to stay away or were you greatly inconvenienced?</li><li>Did anyone care?</li></ol>If you want to eliminate the addictive pull of entertainment sites on your time and attention, give your brain a quality alternative.

Quit Social Media

“Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy 1. The ability to quickly master hard things. 2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.”

<ul><li>Disable all incoming call/message notifications and badges</li><li>Become hard to reach</li><li>Quit social media</li><li>Work in a quiet place</li><li>Work at a quiet time</li><li>Limit internet access</li></ul>

How To Work More Deeply

“When you have fewer hours you usually spend them more wisely.”

“What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore—plays in defining the quality of our life.”                        — Cal Newport

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world. 'Cal Newport is exceptional in the realm of self-help authors' New York Times 'Deep work' is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Coined by author and professor Cal Newport on his popular blog Study Hacks, deep work will make you better at what you do, let you achieve more in less time and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from the mastery of a skill. In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive economy. And yet most people, whether knowledge workers in noisy open-plan offices or creatives struggling to sharpen their vision, have lost the ability to go deep - spending their days instead in a frantic blur of email and social media, not even realising there's a better way. A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories -- from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air -- and surprising suggestions, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Put simply: developing and cultivating a deep work practice is one of the best decisions you can make in an increasingly distracted world and this book will point the way.

Steal Like an Artist

Outstanding Developer skills

Deep Work

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